I can’t find the link but I have a distinct recollection of a LW mod commenting that they’re happy for people to make multiple accounts (including anon ones) as long as they’re not manipulating voting mechanisms, e.g. upvoting the same comment using multiple accounts.
Yep, that’s right! Please don’t abuse the voting system, but overall we are happy for people to make multiple accounts, try to keep separate brands and identities for different topics you want to discuss, etc. (e.g. I think it would be pretty reasonable for someone to have an account where they discuss community governance stuff and get involved in prosecuting a bunch of bad behavior, and another account where they make AI Alignment contributions, without people knowing that they are the same person).
If someone’s doing it just to keep threads and brands separate, it’s not terribly harmful when (not “if”) it gets published that these are alts of the same person, right? It seems like the anger over exposure is directly proportional to the advantage (in rhetoric or reputation) gained by the deception.
I fully support the policy of LW to allow it, and I ALSO support interested people who choose to find and publish the links. Neither side seems to have the entirety of the moral high ground.
And to the OP’s point, such pseudonymity is unlikely to last forever, and those who are depending on the ruse should start deleting those things they don’t want linked to each other now.
If Person X thinks it would be bad for their reputation if they publicly said Y, your comment seems to have a vibe that this negative hit to their reputation is deserved, and that they are somehow cheating by saying Y without getting associated with that. If so, I strongly disagree: See Paul Graham’s “What You Can’t Say”.
I agree that, as a practical matter, “such pseudonymity is unlikely to last forever…” and that it would be prudent for Person X to not assume otherwise. But I see that as an unfortunate thing, and I feel sad if it’s true. And I for one very strongly condemn people doxxing pseudonymous alts. Just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it will inevitably happen. If we spread the idea that it’s bad, the probability goes down on the margin.
I’m not sure why you’re using the word “deception” here. If Person X wants to say Y, but not be publicly associated with it, so they say Y under a pseudonym, I wouldn’t describe that as “deception”. Right? Who is being deceived? If the pseudonym is “butterfly_lover_895” or whatever, nobody is “deceived” into thinking that’s somebody’s legal name. Likewise, most people say things anonymously on the internet sometimes; nobody has a reason to assume that Person X doesn’t do that too. So again, where’s the “deception”?
I wouldn’t say “deserved”—I’m not sure I understand or support reputational systems in a way that lets me assert deserving or “should” in any direction. It is predictable that there would be a negative hit to one’s reputation (and the use of pseudoym in the first place indicates that the prediction has been acknowledged).
It’s also very clearly a deception—it’s entire intent (at least in the case where someone would be upset when outed) is to mislead observers into believing there are two or more independent humans, each with separate reputation and opinions. Whether it’s a deception born of evading an unjust judgement is not relevant to the fact that it’s intended to foster false impressions.
Note that anonymous is very different than pseudonymous. If it’s labeled as <unidentified>, and there’s no tie to other posts implying that there’s a thread of belief/opinion between different anonymous posts, that’s pretty open. When it’s a persistent pseudonym across multiple posts, taking advantage of reputation that the pseudonym accrues, but avoiding the disadvantage of having to reconcile across pseudonyms of the same human, it’s absolutely deceptive.
I say this as a very long-time pseudonymous poster. I’ve used this handle/’nym/username/ID since before the Internet, and feel no shame for keeping a little bit of separation between my online activities and my meatspace interactions. I don’t (mostly) use multiple IDs on the same site, and I won’t be terribly upset if someone discovers my offline self. These are important criteria for whether it’s used for deception or just preference.
If someone comments from multiple unlinked accounts in the same comment thread (and to a lesser extent in the same article), then I agree with you that that’s going to “mislead observers into believing there are two or more independent humans”.
If someone is making Trump-related comments on Trump-related lesswrong blog posts from one alt, and making ML-related comments on ML-related lesswrong blog posts from a different alt, then that doesn’t seem to have that problem, IMO. Like, probably nobody will form an incorrect opinion about the accounts being different people, nor a correct opinion that they’re the same person. They just won’t be thinking about it at all. There’s no reason to.
I hope there aren’t very many LW posts on which Trump-related comments are relevant. But even if so, if there’s no deception involved (nobody will incorrectly separate those two accounts and treat them as distinct people), then there’s ALSO no harm in revealing the truth (the same human made those posts on two different threads).
The anger at being outed is directly proportional to the perceived benefit of the misleading separation of identity.
I’m not sure where (if at all) we disagree. I think it’s clear that the underlying truth is that the same person made posts on both threads. It seems pretty clear (to me) that the poster used different accounts to obfuscate this truth. Where we MAY disagree is in the motivation for this, and the appropriate response to being discovered. I argue that IF the poster is hurt or angry at it becoming well-known that the same person used both aliases, THEN the poster (believes that they) benefitted from the (false) assumption that there were two distinct people. They are angry at this loss of benefit from an encouraged false belief.
I call that “intentional deception”. I don’t have a very strong opinion on whether it’s justified in some or all cases, but I also don’t object to someone discovering and publishing the truth.
I can’t find the link but I have a distinct recollection of a LW mod commenting that they’re happy for people to make multiple accounts (including anon ones) as long as they’re not manipulating voting mechanisms, e.g. upvoting the same comment using multiple accounts.
Yep, that’s right! Please don’t abuse the voting system, but overall we are happy for people to make multiple accounts, try to keep separate brands and identities for different topics you want to discuss, etc. (e.g. I think it would be pretty reasonable for someone to have an account where they discuss community governance stuff and get involved in prosecuting a bunch of bad behavior, and another account where they make AI Alignment contributions, without people knowing that they are the same person).
If someone’s doing it just to keep threads and brands separate, it’s not terribly harmful when (not “if”) it gets published that these are alts of the same person, right? It seems like the anger over exposure is directly proportional to the advantage (in rhetoric or reputation) gained by the deception.
I fully support the policy of LW to allow it, and I ALSO support interested people who choose to find and publish the links. Neither side seems to have the entirety of the moral high ground.
And to the OP’s point, such pseudonymity is unlikely to last forever, and those who are depending on the ruse should start deleting those things they don’t want linked to each other now.
If Person X thinks it would be bad for their reputation if they publicly said Y, your comment seems to have a vibe that this negative hit to their reputation is deserved, and that they are somehow cheating by saying Y without getting associated with that. If so, I strongly disagree: See Paul Graham’s “What You Can’t Say”.
I agree that, as a practical matter, “such pseudonymity is unlikely to last forever…” and that it would be prudent for Person X to not assume otherwise. But I see that as an unfortunate thing, and I feel sad if it’s true. And I for one very strongly condemn people doxxing pseudonymous alts. Just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it will inevitably happen. If we spread the idea that it’s bad, the probability goes down on the margin.
I’m not sure why you’re using the word “deception” here. If Person X wants to say Y, but not be publicly associated with it, so they say Y under a pseudonym, I wouldn’t describe that as “deception”. Right? Who is being deceived? If the pseudonym is “butterfly_lover_895” or whatever, nobody is “deceived” into thinking that’s somebody’s legal name. Likewise, most people say things anonymously on the internet sometimes; nobody has a reason to assume that Person X doesn’t do that too. So again, where’s the “deception”?
I wouldn’t say “deserved”—I’m not sure I understand or support reputational systems in a way that lets me assert deserving or “should” in any direction. It is predictable that there would be a negative hit to one’s reputation (and the use of pseudoym in the first place indicates that the prediction has been acknowledged).
It’s also very clearly a deception—it’s entire intent (at least in the case where someone would be upset when outed) is to mislead observers into believing there are two or more independent humans, each with separate reputation and opinions. Whether it’s a deception born of evading an unjust judgement is not relevant to the fact that it’s intended to foster false impressions.
Note that anonymous is very different than pseudonymous. If it’s labeled as <unidentified>, and there’s no tie to other posts implying that there’s a thread of belief/opinion between different anonymous posts, that’s pretty open. When it’s a persistent pseudonym across multiple posts, taking advantage of reputation that the pseudonym accrues, but avoiding the disadvantage of having to reconcile across pseudonyms of the same human, it’s absolutely deceptive.
I say this as a very long-time pseudonymous poster. I’ve used this handle/’nym/username/ID since before the Internet, and feel no shame for keeping a little bit of separation between my online activities and my meatspace interactions. I don’t (mostly) use multiple IDs on the same site, and I won’t be terribly upset if someone discovers my offline self. These are important criteria for whether it’s used for deception or just preference.
If someone comments from multiple unlinked accounts in the same comment thread (and to a lesser extent in the same article), then I agree with you that that’s going to “mislead observers into believing there are two or more independent humans”.
If someone is making Trump-related comments on Trump-related lesswrong blog posts from one alt, and making ML-related comments on ML-related lesswrong blog posts from a different alt, then that doesn’t seem to have that problem, IMO. Like, probably nobody will form an incorrect opinion about the accounts being different people, nor a correct opinion that they’re the same person. They just won’t be thinking about it at all. There’s no reason to.
I hope there aren’t very many LW posts on which Trump-related comments are relevant. But even if so, if there’s no deception involved (nobody will incorrectly separate those two accounts and treat them as distinct people), then there’s ALSO no harm in revealing the truth (the same human made those posts on two different threads).
The anger at being outed is directly proportional to the perceived benefit of the misleading separation of identity.
I’m not sure where (if at all) we disagree. I think it’s clear that the underlying truth is that the same person made posts on both threads. It seems pretty clear (to me) that the poster used different accounts to obfuscate this truth. Where we MAY disagree is in the motivation for this, and the appropriate response to being discovered. I argue that IF the poster is hurt or angry at it becoming well-known that the same person used both aliases, THEN the poster (believes that they) benefitted from the (false) assumption that there were two distinct people. They are angry at this loss of benefit from an encouraged false belief.
I call that “intentional deception”. I don’t have a very strong opinion on whether it’s justified in some or all cases, but I also don’t object to someone discovering and publishing the truth.